


Not Taken In Tow

by Silberias



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 17:12:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/600168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silberias/pseuds/Silberias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Molly is a spy, and has been one since before she ever met the Holmes Brothers. Even secret intelligence services need to know about the insides of the occasional dead body, which is exactly why a man claiming to be called "Peter Litton" came to see her one afternoon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Taken In Tow

**Author's Note:**

> A prompt from Hihiyas over on tumblr. This time around a TTSS/Sherlock crossover where before Molly ever met the Holmes Brothers, she was recruited to the Circus by Peter Guillam. So here she is, being a bit of a spy for them. It also contains how Sherlock and Molly met--aaaaand references to another fic I've written called "The Ones You Love," aaaaand features me being more than a bit meta about Sherlock and Guillam being played by Whatshisface. 
> 
> Hey, it's okay for the Cabinlockers!
> 
> Oh, and the 'graphic depictions of violence' is more to warn you of the fact that part of the story takes places while Molly is performing an autopsy and I'm not sure how upsetting that might be to some readers in regards to over-active imagination and such.

The older man had once had blonde hair, Molly could tell under the ashy gray which now covered most of his curly head. He wore a ring on his left hand, though it was newer she could see because of the style—this man was about the same age as her dad and her dad's ring was very different—and how it sat on his finger. He twiddled it a lot. She just smiled hesitantly and didn't say anything though, because people always found it strange that she noticed and assumed so many things based on what she saw from their appearance. It got worse—not better—when she mentioned she picked up the habit from her training as a pathologist because the dead sometimes came with no context.

"My name is Peter Litton," that wasn't his name, it was obvious from the way he said it too seriously. People never said their own names very seriously, there was always either a sense of whimsy to how they said them or a tinge of sarcasm. It was a ridiculously easy tell. His handshake was also sure, and the only people who had sure handshakes were liars. No one in this day and age of germs and the common cold and hand sanitizer wanted to go touching other people's hands—and _no one_ wanted to shake the hand of a pathologist, at any rate—and so it was only the liars who shook hands like they meant it.

"Molly Hooper, can I help you?"

"Well, Molly, I have a proposition for you, one I think you'd do well to take me up on."

Within a few months, Molly was far better acquainted with this man and knew far more about the workings of the world than she'd ever— _ever_ —wanted to know. Peter called it the Circus, and it definitely felt like one sometimes. Men and women rushing about perfecting accents, brushing up on the details of tying shoelaces and ordering eggs, all with closely guarded, red-flagged files tucked under their arms. Peter liked to repeat that "Good spies are all about the context," as he and his coworkers deftly played the country and world they lived in. His job was all about _creating_ the context for his spies, because Peter "Litton" _was_ a spy--he was _the_ spy. Hence Peter "Litton" when he was out and about on his own. Oh, of course Molly knew his real name was Guillam. Everyone knew his real name was Guillam, but the fact remained that he went by "Litton" for all of their interactions.

The ring was just a recent addition, she found out when she met the _real_ Mr. Litton—a sweet man perhaps a decade older than Peter by the name of Richard—but it was itself real. Real like her new on-the-side job. Side-jobs were normal, everyone had them. A lot of people at a teaching hospital like Bart's had research projects on the side, or their project at the moment was to get funding for future endeavors. Molly had, before Mr. Litton, been thinking of applying for such a research grant to get her MD and had been scouting out potential advisors and supervisors to work for.

She'd never in a million years thought she would be in a position of working for a man like Peter, though.

The Circus kept a lot of pathologists and many coroners in the UK on staff, and in fact kept all of those located in London on staff because Bonds sometimes screwed up. When Bonds screwed up, sometimes bodies needed to have died of natural causes, when they didn't. The Circus also found it useful to know who died of what—in reality—before any reports could be made of official causes of death. That pathologists and coroners acted as the pan at the bottom of the intelligence sieve—they were the first, last, and only filter at that level. They saw the John Does, the random murders, the Good Guys, and the Bad Guys and everyone in between who died—they were the ones who determined cause of death, and who brought up suspicious causes of death if need be. 

They were already trained to look for every last smidgen of detail. All that remained was putting them in a place where they could defend themselves and function as reserve field agents.

Peter himself had her trained on how to defend herself, how to secure her home before she left it. He was like an uncle that she'd never had—her parents had both been only children so she had no aunts, uncles, or cousins—and he treated her like a daughter. He saw, he said as he taught her how to shoot, the sweetness and goodness that he'd always wanted his own sons to have. Molly hadn't asked how a gay man his age had children, she assumed these children were phantoms from his distant past—instead she tried not to stammer at the compliment. Her weary working class parents had always tried to guide her away from being 'naïve' or 'silly' or 'being a hopeless romantic.' 

Special strings had long ago been pulled to put her at St. Bart's, though Peter had said it was worth the effort because she had accepted the job and had exceeded all expectations. She was also the best candidate for the job, according to Peter, because she had little in the way of family and other responsibilities. It was the nicest way she'd ever heard "your family is dead and you have no friends," that Molly almost wanted to laugh. A good, happy laugh. She didn't ask him why exactly he'd had all those strings pulled, because she didn't really need to know. Peter never failed to tell her things she needed to know exactly when she needed to know them.

Molly worked peacefully in the labs and the morgue for about a year before it became apparent _why_ she was there. Two tall men—one with auburn hair and the other with fluffy black curls and eyes she almost recognized—walked into her morgue in the middle of an autopsy. She'd only just begun to remove the organs, weighing them and placing them in their own trays.

The auburn haired one introduced them, ignoring her bloody gloves and the murder victim splayed out on the slab in front of them.

"Molly Hooper—I've heard a lot of things about you. Mr. Litton sent us to meet you. My name is Mycroft Holmes and this is my brother, Sherlock."

She hadn't made to shake his hand—not that he'd offered a hand—because she _was_ wrist deep in some poor sod's ribcage, and she didn't exactly feel like stripping her gloves for such an unannounced visit. Her two guests were obviously from the Circus. Though you learned to _see_ the kind of suits the men from there wore, she knew better their employer because of _Mr. Litton_ being mentioned. Richard, bless his heart, wouldn't ever send Circus goons to meet her. Peter might though, bless _his_ heart.

The one with the curly hair, Sherlock, took a step closer to look at the open body cavity she was working on. His bright blue eyes flicked around at the remaining places the organs were attached inside—quite a lot actually—and then settled on her face. He wasn't a handsome man, more than a bit odd looking, but those eyes arrested her in place.

"Cause of death?"

"Poison."

"Looks like a drowning," he was testing her—and he was also smart, maybe half-way trained as a diener. Discoloration and swelling of the body and face would point to drowning to most casual observers, even to most closer than casual observers. If he had been the one to take this man apart, he would have probably concluded cause of death to be drowning if toxicology tests weren't also ordered somehow--and why would they, seeing the circumstances of the man's discovery.

"Didn't aspirate water, didn't drown. Simple, unless he's a special snowflake and he 'dry drowned'…and hadn't been poisoned."

"You haven't even opened the lungs to look." One thick eyebrow was quirked in question.

"Don't need to. See here," she poked a little at the bronchial tube of one lung, "this shows no evidence of hemolysis—blood cells bursting. That means that he didn't breathe in water, which means he was dead before he was submerged. Really stone dead too, it's not like he suffered some sort of mortal wound and fell unconscious."

"Why do you say poison then, specifically?"

"Color of his kidneys, but that's for another day. Why are you two here? Mr. Litton hasn't mentioned either of you." If her hands weren't covered in blood, she might have rested them on her hips. 

"Just to introduce ourselves. Sherlock is going to be working on a more…freelance basis now. Investigating screw-ups for Mr. Litton and the top floor, you know the drill," Mycroft's smirk was bitter in the same way that Peter's was sometimes and it clicked in Molly's head finally. These were Peter's children. She was a little surprised they were her age, she was expecting to see men several years older than these two. It explained Mycroft's manner and Sherlock's looks.

"Well, I have to get back to the office and tell Mr. Litton we've met and been pleasant to one another—Sherlock, shall I leave you to get to know Molly better?"

Sherlock had been staring, engrossed, at the dead man's kidneys since Molly had pointed them out and he twitched visibly to look up at his brother.

"Oh—yes. I'll text you later then."

"I'd prefer it if you called."

"And you know I won't so why don't you get on back to Mr. Litton?" Molly felt very out of place, watching them argue—even though Peter always said she counted as a spy she knew she just wasn't one like the ones who walked around the Circus or lounged in recuperation or incarceration at Sarratt. It was funny to her though, and she bit her lips to keep from giggling about her bloody gloves and trays of organs while these two spies argued and sniped at each other.

Once Mycroft saw himself out, Sherlock pulled a chair from another room and settled himself across the body from Molly.

"You can't—you can't really be here," she said, glancing up for a second from separating the stomach from the surrounding tissue. "Earlier was for Mr. Litton, but now I've got to do my job. And besides-It's only authorized personnel in here I'm sorry, I know it's stupid but—"

"I can be anywhere I want," he said with a smile, palming an ID from his pocket and slipping it around his neck. There on the card was his face, obviously pasted on top of someone else's, over the laminate. It didnt' fool her, but Molly knew well enough that people never looked too closely at IDs outside of the Circus. The Circus made its _business_ on the fact that people never _looked_.

She sighed and focused back to the work at hand--someone had murdered this man, the faster she processed his body the faster someone would be after his killer. Sherlock put his feet up on the seat of his chair, hugging his arms around his shins as he stared at her and her hands as she worked. Aside from his very presence--she was used to the lab being completely silent save for her own breathing and the squelches bodies made--he didn't make a peep until she was about to move the body block from under the man's chest to under his head to remove the cap of the skull.

"Can I take you out to dinner when you're done with your shift here?" Molly glanced over at the clock at his words, feeling a dark blush sweep up her neck and cheeks as she did so. He certainly moved right along. Most spies did, really, they didn't have long for this world and they chose to live their lives to the fullest. It was why Peter had obviously worked hard to keep Richard for so long--the rest of his life was sacrificed to the Circus. It appealed the the hopeless romantic inside Molly to perhaps be someone's Richard Litton, but they had to be real about this.

"I'm not off for another six hours."

"That's fine, I've got nowhere to be. And you can explain how you know it was poison because of the kidneys, I'd like to know how you can tell that."

Her infatuation with Sherlock was a cover, eventually. It covered up Sherlock's affection towards her—and he _ought_ to be affectionate, Molly told herself, he was nearly _married_ to her—and allowed him to do his work easier as he brought more of a spotlight on himself. He had so many covers, too, that Molly was happy to let him have one that was at least easy to maintain. Some of his others didn't treat him nearly so well. The cover of past drug problems was particularly difficult for him to maintain, as he had to put himself on a constant balance of 'okay/not okay' to those around him. It made him irritable and erratic to live on such a knife's edge, but it was necessary for his work.

Peter and Mycroft joked—but not really, as those two men _rarely_ joked even as much as using _puns_ —that they had Molly to blame that Sherlock left the Circus to become a Consulting Detective. He'd been passingly interested in pathology and forensics before he'd met her, but now it was a full-on obsession.

They talked as though he still worked for the Circus though, on a case so vast that he had to devote his full and complete attention on it. Something to do with a man named Moriarty, or so she gathered.


End file.
